If anything's kept pace with how video games have changed over the years, it's how we interact with them. Our biggest touchpoint with virtual worlds is the gamepad and -- akin to how games themselves have evolved from simple 2D affairs into 100-hour-long labyrinths in three dimensions -- controllers have changed to accommodate that. What you'll find in the gallery below is a comprehensive look at gamepads from the past 30-plus years of gaming, including high points and missteps alike.

What's the next step after fully funding your game in 40 minutes on Kickstarter? If you're the team behind Yooka-Laylee, Playtonic, you get a publisher to help with stuff like localization (translating dialogue and text for different regions), QA testing and other unglamorous but still necessary elements of game development. To wit, the former Banjo Kazooie creatives have hooked up with indie label Team17, perhaps best known for the Worms and Alien Breed franchises. This partnership means that Playtonic can worry about working on the game itself while Team17 takes care of the more menial bits and bobs. Good thing, too considering Playtonic is still planning to hit a simultaneous October 2016 release across PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Wii U. If you'd like to check out more, hit the jump for our interview with the folks from the studio.

One of the biggest surprises from E3 this year was that Fallout 4 would support user mods across PC and Xbox One. That's still in the cards, but it definitely won't happen at launch. Of course, that's because the tools that'd allow you to, say, replace the game's fearsome bear-like enemies the Yao Guai with 3D models of Yogi the Bear don't exist yet according to IGN. Publisher Bethesda Softworks' vice president of marketing Pete Hines says that the team's focus is on making sure the game ships on time. "Our entire focus is on finishing the game," he said. "Nobody cares about mods if the game sucks." Concise! Once Fallout 4 proper is done (and the team likely takes a bit of a break), work on The Creation Kit will begin; it'll take "clearly into next year," according to Hines.

In case Shenmue 3 and a Castlevania spiritual successor were a bit too recent and console-centric for your nostalgia kick, maybe the new King's Quest will tickle your fancy. The hand-painted adventure game's first episode is out today across a wide swath of platforms (PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 an Xbox One, Windows). Creative director Matt Korba writes on the PlayStation Blog that the aim was to make a family-friendly game in an effort to bridge the gap between players of yore and today. What's more there are apparently quite a few references to the original games hidden here and there. Should you want to try and find 'em for yourself, it's $9.99 per episode or $39.99 for the season pass.

In case you've already finished Journey and are looking for another gorgeous game that eschews violence, Submerged hits PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in early August. From the sounds of it, the game should be a pretty relaxing affair despite the fact that protagonist Miku is searching a flooded city for a cure for her wounded younger brother. A post on the PlayStation Blog notes that you can explore at your own pace and climb around as you see fit. And as you do, you'll uncover the tale of how the world came to be flooded and a tale of an equally destroyed family. The game gets its good looks thanks to the absurdly powerful Unreal Engine 4, and I'm feeling a bit of an Enslaved: Odyssey to the West vibe from it, myself.

Grand Theft Auto V really seems like the gift that keeps on giving. The latest present? An unofficial map app (Android, iOS and web) that's been updated with collectibles locations from the current-gen releases like Peyote plants that let you play as sharks, eagles and more -- yes, flying around as a bird of prey is bizarre as it sounds. The differences between this and the official app are pretty major, too. As VG24/7 reports, you can add personal notes to the map, track your collectibles progress and even switch between atlas and satellite views of the terrain. Future plans include making streets searchable by name. Interested? Hit the source links below to grab it for your device of choice.

It's time to put that Doom alpha code from your PlayStation 4, Xbox One or PC copy of Wolfenstein: The New Order to use if you already haven't redeemed it. Publisher Bethesda's announced that access to the Hell-bound shooter's first multiplayer test will open up "in the coming months." The post on Bethblog says that if you bought the game digitally there's no need to hassle with redeeming keys as you're automagically entered into the selection pool, too. Let's say you didn't buy the latest Wolfenstein though and only pre-ordered Doom after witnessing its big reveal at E3 last month. Well, in that case you have to wait for Doom's beta and that won't happen until next year ahead of the game's scheduled when it's donespring release window. Folks attending id's Quakecon in Texas this weekend, however, get a leg up on everyone else and have access to a pre-alpha build of the multiplayer mode.

Microsoft's earnings for the fourth quarter are in, and they show an operating loss of $2.1 billion, despite $22.2 billion in revenue (compared to $23.3 billion last year). A lot of that is due to the previously announced write-down for Nokia (and 7,800 job cuts) that caused an $7.5 billion hit. Of course, we knew that was coming, but the other news is that revenue and operating income were slightly down from last year too. Microsoft sold 8.4 million Lumia phones in Q4 (compared to 5.8 million last year), but revenue dropped 38 percent to $748 million. As the company looks forward to Windows 10, revenue for that division dropped 22 percent, a figure that it attributed to XP's end-of-support cycle.

This weekend over 6,000 folks from 47 countries will descend into Las Vegas to kick the (virtual) snot out of each other. That's because the 13th annual Evolution fighting game tournament, otherwise known as Evo 2015, starts today with world warriors competing across nine games including Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat X, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Ultra Street Fighter IV. They're battling for over $300,000 in prize money and in case you couldn't make it to Sin City for the show, we've got you covered. The competition starts at 12 pm Eastern / 9 am Pacific today and goes until the final street fighting man or woman is defeated Sunday night. As you might expect, the entire event's being broadcast via Twitch and you can park it right here on Engadget to watch the whole thing!

Dead Island 2 is dead. For now at least. Publisher Deep Silver sent out an update today announcing that it's no longer working with the open-world zombie-massacre/absurd-weapon-crafting simulator sequel's developer, Yager, on the title. "With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve," the statement reads. "After careful consideration, today we announce the decision to part ways with development partner Yager." The email goes on to say that the publisher will "continue working towards bringing" its vision of the game to life and will have more info in the future. Deep Silver and Yager showed a very early version of the game off at E3 in 2014, but it wasn't all that impressive and the game didn't look anywhere close to the intentionally cheesy cinematic trailer that premiered during Sony's media briefing, either.

E3 is (thankfully) over, and that means the press that cover the event have recently cast their votes for what they thought were the best games from the show. You know those blurbs on box art saying "winner of over 90 awards" and the like? This is partly where they come from. Collectively known as The Game Critics Awards, the governing body for them is made up of staff from over 30 editorial outlets, including Engadget, that attended gaming's Paris Fashion Week. For a game to even be up for consideration though, it has to be playable -- a stage demo or non-interactive trailer won't cut it. What's it mean for you? In the end, a better idea about what it's like to actually play the biggest games from E3, because we got to go hands-on with them. Without further ado, the winners are in the gallery below. Spoiler: Fallout 4was pretty successful.

There are a host of new features coming to Plex's Xbox One app. In addition to the standard fare of navigation tweaks, added SmartGlass functionality and bug fixes, the media organizer/caster now allows users to play music through their Xbone. Plex also now offers playlist support for both songs and videos. Plus, there's no longer need to convert videos either, the service can play back video in Xbox's native MKV file format. But arguably the coolest new feature is that you'll finally get real, honest-to-goodness trailers prior to watching your films. It's as close to the theater experience you can get without having to pay for IMAX and stale popcorn.

In the early 2000s, four-player, split-screen Halo was a revelation for my then-girlfriend Jenn (who would later become my wife), her two sisters and me. It was amazing, frantic, swear-filled fun. Controllers were thrown; tempers flared. But that's all sadly in the past. Last week, Halo's current custodian, 343 Industries, revealed that it's abandoning local split-screen multiplayer and native LAN support for this fall's Halo 5: Guardians. We knew from earlier reports that local campaign co-op was out of the question, at least at launch, but the Ars Technica report confirms we won't see any split-screen multiplayer modes or native LAN support. Allow me to repeat: No local multiplayer. None. In a Halo game. For me, and likely many other longtime Halo fans, the news is a bitter pill to swallow.

Welcome to the new music experience in Windows 10. As hinted at earlier this morning by Paul Thurrott, the company just announced it's rebranding the Xbox Music experience to "Groove", while also renaming the Xbox Video app to just "Movies & TV." According to a blog post about the changes, the new naming is meant to be "more identifiable to our broad customer base" and will roll out to other devices in the coming months. The timing of the change is odd as Windows and Xbox begin to work more closely together than ever before, but it doesn't appear that the actual features will be much different. Of course, with the launch of Apple Music, rebranding could be just the way to get some attention for an existing service that already offers a lot of the same features.

Thanks a lot, Bethesda. After the outfit's first E3 media briefing, I pre-ordered the Pip-Boy Edition of Fallout 4 because of course I want to put a real-life version of the game's stat-tracker and menu system on my forearm. All good, right? Well, I'm also in the market for a new phone and was eyeing an iPhone 6 Plus because it has a better camera and battery life compared to its smaller sibling, the iPhone 6. That's where the problems arise: Bethesda recently announced that the real-world Pip-Boy comes with foam inserts that fit the iPhone 4 and 4s, 5 and 5s and the 6 in addition to the Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5. The company also promises a customizable foam insert that'll accommodate "most other popular" handsets.

The Xbox 360 had a dedicated spot in millions of living rooms, bedrooms and offices for nearly 10 years, and during that time, players purchased massive libraries of games. However, when the Xbox One launched in 2013, it didn't include the ability to play or transfer Xbox 360 games, a disappointment for many fans. That's why Microsoft's announcement at its E3 showcase was so exciting: The Xbox One is getting backward compatibility this holiday, with a lineup of more than 100 fan-requested Xbox 360 games to start and more to be added as demand warrants. Xbox One backward compatibility runs an Xbox 360 emulator right on the console, which is no easy feat, Microsoft General Manager of Games Publishing Shannon Loftis explains during a chat at E3.

Microsoft is entering the virtual reality conversation with a one-two punch: partnerships with both Oculus and Valve VR. The Oculus Rift will be bundled with a wireless Xbox One controller, native support on Windows 10 and the ability to play Xbox One games in a virtual cinema via Xbox-to-Windows streaming. Valve VR joins the Rift on Windows 10, a partnership that Microsoft announced during its Xbox E3 conference, suggesting a focus on gaming in Valve's virtual worlds. But, Microsoft's VR plans may be bigger than just two other companies, Microsoft General Manager of Games Publishing Shannon Loftis suggested during an interview at E3 this week. Read her thoughts on VR, gaming and Windows 10 below.

When Halo: The Master Chief Collection launched last year, it was supposed to be ultimate fan service: four of the most renowned games in the series, all in one fancy package loaded with extras, all on Xbox One. The final product was... well, problematic. To this day it still isn't 100 percent functional all the time, with a rash of issues like game crashes still persisting. "It was our first game on a new platform, and it was essentially five engines [with] a wrapper," 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross explained to me this week. All that to say, because the game wasn't a native Xbox One game is why it had so many issues. Still that makes it incredibly difficult to get excited for this fall's Halo 5: Guardians. Will it be as heartbreaking on a technical level as MCC? I briefly spoke with Ross about how she and her teams are working to overcome and address that very valid concern.

You read that headline correctly. With the Xbox 360 to Windows 10 game streaming out in the open, it stood to reason that you'd be able to play your collection of games from Microsoft's second Xbox on the Oculus Rift too. We asked the virtual reality company if that was indeed the case and a spokesperson confirmed that indeed it was. So, Mass Effect in VR? That's a definite.

Typically E3's vision of the future is pretty shortsighted. But this year when I stepped into a war room for a Halo 5: Guardians mission briefing, that's when I knew that the gaming trade show's look at what's ahead extended beyond just games that are months or sometimes years off.

The space's middle was dominated by a hexagonal table roughly four feet across, and floating a scant few inches above its surface was a slowly rotating, azure hologram of a massive starship. It was familiar and I'd seen it somewhere before, but it took a moment for me to identify: It was the UNSC Infinity from the Halo universe, courtesy of Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality headset sitting atop my skull. With the few moments I had alone in the room, I circled the dais. The hologram remained on its deliberate arc while I peered from every angle, looking for flaws that'd break the 3D illusion. Those came later, but not where I expected them.

"This is ridiculous," another attendee said as I returned to my spot at the table. He was right.

By now, if you're an Xbox One gamer, you know that Microsoft has a pretty badass controller on the horizon. But what's truly interesting about the new Elite controller, announced at the company's major E3 press event this week, is that it's the product of several in-home research sessions. According to Xbox Hardware Project Manager David Prien, the company realized that today's gamers are all about "customization and personalization." And so Prien's team enlisted pro-gamers picked from leaderboards on the company's own Xbox titles to help mold this new modular controller design.Slideshow-298983

But if you thought that the Elite controller was just for gaming's cream of the crop players, you'd be mistaken. Prien assured us that it's "not just for the pro-gamer. The idea here is that everyone can benefit from this." He also said that the hardware team had a "laundry list of over 100 feature sets," though, understandably, not all of that made it into the final design. We had an opportunity to get some close-up time with the new Elite controller here on the showfloor, so be sure to watch our interview with Prien below.

When Microsoft said it had a new Xbox One user experience in store at E3, it wasn't joking around. The company has unveiled its redesigned console interface, and it has very little in common with the tile-based UI you use today. The focuses here are on speed and community -- there's a quick menu for some of your most common tasks, and a prominent activity feed shows what your friends are up to. Oh, and Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant will play a big role on the Xbox, too. You can tell the system to handle certain duties (such as starting a party) at any point, even while you're playing. Microsoft hasn't said just when the new experience arrives beyond "soon," but the tech giant has historically rolled out these bigger Xbox updates late in the year.

Update: Check after the break for a quick video walkthrough of the new UI.

Microsoft announced that, starting today, Xbox One users running Windows 10 and who are members of the preview program will be able to try the company's new Game Streaming feature. It does exactly what it sounds like, allowing users to stream their console games to a remote computer. In fact, the feature actually mirrors the full console so you can also access the home screen and apps however you won't be able to stream movies, music or other protected content. What you will have access to is virtually every Xbox One title -- save for the ones that require a Kinect or other specialized hardware.

Xbox 360 backwards compatibility. A new $150 "Elite" controller. A mind-blowing Minecraft for HoloLens demo. Fallout 4, Halo 5, Tomb Raider, Gears of War and even more Gears of War. Microsoft had a lot to show off at its E3 2015 event, so let our team on the ground recap what we've seen and offer some initial thoughts on it before we move on with today's other big events.